Other works by Dustin Stevens :
Cold Fire
Going Viral
Motive
Quarterback
Be My Eyes
Scars and Stars
Catastrophic
21 Hours
Ohana
Twelve
Liberation Day
Just a Game
Ink
Four
The Zoo Crew Novels:
Tracer
Dead Peasants
The Zoo Crew
The Glue Guy
A Zoo Crew Novel
Dustin Stevens
The Glue Guy
Copyright © 2015, Dustin Stevens
Warning: All rights reserved. The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work, in whole or part, in any form by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, is illegal and forbidden, without the written permission of the author.
This is a work of fiction. Characters, settings, names, and occurrences are a product of the author’s imagination and bear no resemblance to any actual person, living or dead, places or settings, and/or occurrences. Any incidences of resemblance are purely coincidental.
There are grander and more sublime landscapes…There are more compelling cultures. But what appeals to me about central Montana is that the combination of landscape and lifestyle is the most compelling I've seen on this earth.
-Sam Abell
Chapter One
Fog.
Condensation.
Every few moments Dale Garvey reached out and smeared it away from the front windshield. Left wet circles across the inside of the glass. Wiped his hand along the leg of his jeans.
“You know that leaves marks on your windshield,” Megan Rayner said from the passenger seat.
Sliding his eyes shut, Garvey pushed a loud breath out through his nose. Made sure she heard it. Opened his eyes again without looking over. In the darkened interior of the truck, he would barely be able to see her.
Wasn’t sure he wanted to anyway.
If not for the fact that he couldn’t do what he had set out to alone, he would have left her at home. She wasn’t yet ready for this. Hadn’t been through what he had.
But there was nobody else.
“I know,” he said. Still didn’t bother to look over at her. “But I can’t risk turning the engine on to run the defrost.”
Together the pair had been seated in the darkness for over two hours. Despite the steadily dropping temperatures in the interior of the truck, there was still no way to keep the windows from fogging over.
From Garvey having to wipe them clean every so often.
“Are you sure about this?” Megan asked.
It was the fifth time since they’d parked that she’d asked the question. Each time she did, it raised the annoyance within Garvey a little higher.
Just beneath the surface he could feel it lurking. Building. Waiting to explode.
Once more he drew in a deep breath. Willed himself to remain calm.
He couldn’t do this alone.
“Yes,” Garvey said. Forced his voice somewhere close to neutral. “You saw what’s happening down there. It’s only going to get worse. We can’t allow that.”
A moment of silence passed. Garvey hoped it meant she was finally accepting his explanation.
Knew better than to actually believe it.
“And you think this is the best way to ensure that?”
It was the first time a question had been posed without direct opposition. An inquiry asking for his thoughts. Nothing more.
Seated behind the wheel of his truck, Garvey felt the corners of his mouth rise.
She was coming around. Just as she always did.
“Of course,” he said. Lowered his voice into something resembling a soothing tone. “That’s why we’re sitting out here in the cold right now. We don’t actually want to hurt anybody, we just need to make sure we’re heard.”
Beside him he could hear Megan sniffle. Whether it was from the frigid interior of the truck or stifled crying he couldn’t be sure.
“Okay,” she whispered. “I just want to make sure we don’t hurt anybody.”
“Never,” Garvey said. Reached a hand out along the back of the bench seat they were on. Slid his fingers in behind her long brown hair. Massaged her neck.
For a moment her entire body was rigid. Seemed to resist his touch.
After a few seconds the tension released. She leaned back into the steady kneading from his fingers. Let out the slightest moan of pleasure.
Having to pacify her trepidations was fast becoming a nuisance. She wasn’t made from the same stuff as him. Didn’t have the same convictions. For the time being though, that didn’t matter. He didn’t need her to believe in the cause, he needed her to believe in him.
As far as his purposes now required, that was enough.
Garvey kept his hand in place and turned his focus back out through the window. Stared through the circle already beginning to fog over again.
Felt his adrenaline spike as a pair of headlights appeared in the distance.
There was no chance they could be seen from where they were parked. The pull off was too remote, the color of the truck too dark for that.
The jolt of electricity through him was rather a result of what the headlights symbolized.
Six times in the preceding weeks Garvey had staked out the place. Even managed to get inside once. He knew there was no set schedule to when the maintenance man came and went. Just that he seemed to arrive sometime after ten. Depart late in the evening.
The important thing was that after he did, nobody else disturbed the house. The woman, the only other staff on site, hadn’t been seen in some time.
The headlights meant they now had nothing but unimpeded access for eight solid hours.
Pulling his hand away, Garvey watched as the headlights disappeared in the distance. Glanced over his shoulder at the supplies piled high in the bed of the truck. At the green cylinder propped up on the seat between them, secured into place with a seat belt.
The most important item of the evening for their purposes.
Garvey reached out and turned over the ignition. Waited as the engine warmed and the first blast of hot air hit him in over two hours.
Once the glass was clear he put the truck into gear and eased forward without turning on the lights.
The house was now empty.
It was time to move.
Chapter Two
Two voices.
One male. One female.
They drifted down the darkened hallway of the house. Found the ears of Wes Koenig as a he sat dozing in the den. The moment the sound hit him his eyes opened, the rest of him remaining motionless.
Not that he would be doing much moving anyway.
At eighty-one years old, his withered body had been confined to a wheelchair for more than five years. His form, once strong and thick, had disintegrated away bit by bit.
What remained of it was now buried under a pile of quilts hiding a vertical accordion of exposed ribs. Twin sets of parallel matchsticks for appendages. Folds of excess skin dappled with liver spots.
The combined loss of muscle mass and adipose tissue had dropped his internal temperature by what felt like a dozen degrees. No matter how many blankets he piled on he could always feel the cold. Like a bitter spouse it nagged at him day and night. Chilled him to the core. Sapped his will.
The most recent addition to the fight against frostbite was the space heater on the floor beside him, a new acquisition since his last stint in Montana. A low hum rolled from the fan along the base of it, pushing warmth h
is direction. Above it two dozen coils glowed red in the darkness, congruent waves hanging suspended in the air.
It was there Koenig aimed his attention. Focused his eyes. Tried to place the voices.
Determine who they were, what they were arguing about.
From the first sound there was no doubt the two were at odds. Hearing them go back and forth, the fog of sleep lifted itself from Koenig. The last thing he remembered with any certainty was being fifty pages into Johnny Got His Gun, the aging paperback now face down on his lap.
Above it the reading lamp he used was still on, the neck of it twisted out above him.
Everything exactly the way it had been an unknown amount of time before.
Leaning forward at the waist, Koenig extended a single gnarled finger from beneath the blankets. Used it to depress a switch atop the heater. The plastic felt warm to the touch as the fan kicked off, color receding from the coils.
Without the incessant buzz of the machine the room fell completely silent, the voices carrying much stronger down the hall towards him.
The original assumption was they belonged to Sharon and Wylie, his longtime servant team. Splitting the chores of the home, it wasn’t unusual for them to be discussing matters.
Sharon took care of the interior tasks. Cooking, cleaning, answering the phone.
Wylie was her counterpart outside, tending the grounds, caring for the vehicles and machinery.
Cumulatively they had worked for Koenig for twenty years. In that time it was not common for them to be conducting business long after the sun went down, though not unheard of.
The thought settled into Koenig’s mind as he rested his head back against his chair. Listened. Just as fast raised it back up, eyes narrowed in concentration.
Since arriving back in Montana the day before he had yet to see either one. Far as he knew, neither was even aware he was there.
Sharon had been given three weeks of leave to go back east for the birth of her new grandchild. Wylie didn’t work on the weekends. Stayed outside when he was on the premises.
There was no reason for either to be present now. Even if they were, there was no doubt the voices Koenig heard did not belong to them. While both were capable employees, they were not young. At a combined one hundred years even, their voices plainly bore the strain that a life in Montana brought with it.
Exhaustion. Exasperation. Tedium.
None of which was present in the voices drifting down the hallway towards him. In their place was a trio of measures far more worrisome.
Urgency. Tension. Animosity.
“No,” the female said. Voice clipped low in a faux whisper. “This is not what we agreed to.”
“We agreed to destroy this home,” the male responded. Equal measures of condescension and defiance in his tone. “This will do that.”
“Yeah, destroy. Not obliterate.”
“Is there a difference?” the male replied.
The voice on the back end held so much contempt Koenig could practically see the sneer on the owner’s face.
Not that he had any idea who the owner was.
“We don’t even know if there is anybody here,” the female said. “What if we can’t control it? What if it gets out of hand?”
Putting his hands on either side of his wheelchair, Koenig pushed straight forward. Rolled himself back into the corner. Made sure he was far beyond the fading glow of the space heater.
There he remained, waiting, his hands still gripping the wheels on either side of him. Squeezed them so tight his knuckles ached.
“The house is dark, the place is silent,” the male replied. “Nobody’s home. See, listen.”
Koenig felt his heart rate spike as a moment passed.
“Hello! Anybody home?”
The man’s voice echoed through the cavernous house. Bounced off furniture that hadn’t been touched in years. Reverberated through cabinets containing china that had not once been eaten off of.
For the first time in months, Koenig felt warm. His pulse rose enough to overcome the chill gripping him. It pushed oxygenated blood through him, bringing sweat to his brow and the small of his back.
He had a decision to make.
He could take a chance and respond. Hope that it would be enough to ward off the intruders. Send them back to wherever they had come from.
Alternatively, it could serve as an open invitation. Draw them towards him. Make him a target with no hope of defending himself.
Pulling in a deep breath of air, he opted to remain silent. Kept his body poised atop his wheelchair. Gripped the sides of his chair and waited.
“See, told you nobody was here,” the male said, a touch of mirth now obvious. “Let’s do what we came here to do and get going.”
Wishing with every fiber of his being that Wylie or Sharon would show up for some late night errand, Koenig sat and waited. Over ten minutes he remained in complete silence, tucked away in the corner.
He waited long after the first traces of an unfamiliar scent crossed his nostrils. Longer still past the sound of footsteps retreating over the wooden floorboards of the hallway.
Not until the first tendrils of smoke drifted beneath the closed door separating him from the rest of the house did he move.
But by then, it was too late.
Chapter Three
Matchsticks.
Burning embers.
Red silhouettes against a blackened sky. The rough outline of what had been a palatial house hours before.
Nothing more.
The misshapen image was all Butte Detective Paul Taggert could see as he pulled up to the property. Put his cruiser in park. Left the engine running.
“What do you think?”
Beside him his partner Clint Foye leaned forward and lowered his upper body to get a better view out through the windshield. Shook his head.
“Why the hell did they call us instead of the fire department?”
The same thought had gone through Taggert’s mind the moment they pulled off the road. Even as tucked away as the property was, it would be impossible for the caller not to see it burning.
As they sat and stared Taggert could almost imagine it tossing flames into the air. See the orange tongues flicking against the night sky, extending high above the treetops.
“What was the house made of?” Foye asked.
Taggert raised his eyebrows. Snorted. Let the action rock his head back an inch. “Something flammable. Does it matter?”
The remark pulled Foye away from the windshield, flattening him against his seatback. He opened his mouth once, twice, before responding.
“Just thinking the place went up fast, that’s all.”
The two had been together just three months, a pairing Taggert was not happy about at the time, only nominally more so at the moment. There was nothing in particular the young man had done to earn any acrimony, besides being young. That alone was enough to make Taggert acutely aware of his own age and give him the feeling of being a babysitter.
Neither was he overly fond of.
Without responding, Taggert killed the ignition and climbed from beneath the wheel. Slammed the door shut behind him. Hooked his thumbs into the loops of his jeans and studied the house.
It was just the third time he’d been by the place, despite it sitting eight miles from the police station. The first visit was when some construction materials came up missing as the place was being built. The second, a complaint of some kids trespassing on Halloween.
Neither trip had amounted to much.
On the opposite side of the car Foye clamped a stained tan Stetson on his head, waiting for Taggert to make the first move.
The call had come in a half hour before. Interrupted a slice of Maggie’s famous apple pie at the all night diner bearing her name. Earned a sour look from Taggert in the process.
Miles outside of town, the house was well beyond the sightline of city lights. Just barely within the city police department’s jurisdiction.
“Another half mile down the road and this would have gone to the sheriff,” Taggert said. Took a few steps closer. Even at eighty yards out could feel the heat rolling from the structure.
“Is that good or bad?” Foye asked.
Taggert remained silent. Looked across the hood of their unmarked patrol car to his young cohort.
At a glance, the two were different in virtually every way. Foye was youthful, with a fleshy, cherubic appearance to underscore it. His cheeks were always red, his hair dark and thick.
Missing meals clearly wasn’t a problem.
Twenty years his senior, Taggert was taller by almost a half-foot. Kept his sand colored hair cut short and pushed to the side. Wore his moustache longer.
Weighed a buck sixty five on a good day.
While wearing his boots.
“Haven’t decided yet,” Taggert muttered. Ventured a few more steps forward. Was again held at bay by an invisible thermal wall.
Unclipping his radio from his belt, he held it to his lips. “Dispatch, this is Taggert.”
“Go ahead, Paul,” came a gruff voice just a moment later. Male. Bored.
“Yeah, we’re on site here,” Taggert replied. “Whoever called in and said they heard something was lying their ass off.”
“You sure? Place deserted?”
“Burned to the ground,” Taggert said. Left the statement at that. Allowed any necessary information to be inferred from the single sentence.
A low, shrill whistle cackled through the radio. “Damn. Isn’t that old man Koenig’s place?”
“Yup.”
A moment of silence passed, Taggert not bothering to fill it with what he knew they were both thinking.
“Couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy.”
His friend on the other end of the line wasn’t blessed with the same sort of restraint.
“Better get the fire department out here,” Taggert said. Bypassed the comment completely. Ignored the stare from Foye beside him. “There’s not much left standing of the house, but there’s a lot of dry pine around here.
The Glue Guy: The Zoo Crew Series Book 4 Page 1
